Interdisciplinary studies often require researchers to explore literature in diverse branches of knowledge. Yet, navigating through the highly scattered knowledge from unfamiliar disciplines poses a significant challenge. In this paper, we introduce DiscipLink, a novel interactive system that facilitates collaboration between researchers and large language models (LLMs) in interdisciplinary information seeking (IIS). Based on users' topic of interest, DiscipLink initiates exploratory questions from the perspectives of possible relevant fields of study, and users can further tailor these questions. DiscipLink then supports users in searching and screening papers under selected questions by automatically expanding queries with disciplinary-specific terminologies, extracting themes from retrieved papers, and highlighting the connections between papers and questions. Our evaluation, comprising a within-subject comparative experiment and an open-ended exploratory study, reveals that DiscipLink can effectively support researchers in breaking down disciplinary boundaries and integrating scattered knowledge in diverse fields. The findings underscore the potential of LLM-powered tools in fostering information-seeking practices and bolstering interdisciplinary research.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676366
LLM-powered tools like ChatGPT Data Analysis, have the potential to help users tackle the challenging task of data analysis programming, which requires expertise in data processing, programming, and statistics. However, our formative study (n=15) uncovered serious challenges in verifying AI-generated results and steering the AI (i.e., guiding the AI system to produce the desired output). We developed two contrasting approaches to address these challenges. The first (Stepwise) decomposes the problem into step-by-step subgoals with pairs of editable assumptions and code until task completion, while the second (Phasewise) decomposes the entire problem into three editable, logical phases: structured input/output assumptions, execution plan, and code. A controlled, within-subjects experiment (n=18) compared these systems against a conversational baseline. Users reported significantly greater control with the Stepwise and Phasewise systems, and found intervention, correction, and verification easier, compared to the baseline. The results suggest design guidelines and trade-offs for AI-assisted data analysis tools.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676345
Programming instructors often conduct collaborative learning activities, like Peer Instruction, to foster a deeper understanding in students and enhance their engagement with learning. These activities, however, may not always yield productive outcomes due to the diversity of student mental models and their ineffective collaboration. In this work, we introduce VizGroup, an AI-assisted system that enables programming instructors to easily oversee students' real-time collaborative learning behaviors during large programming courses. VizGroup leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to recommend event specifications for instructors so that they can simultaneously track and receive alerts about key correlation patterns between various collaboration metrics and ongoing coding tasks. We evaluated VizGroup with 12 instructors in a comparison study using a dataset collected from a Peer Instruction activity that was conducted in a large programming lecture. The results showed that VizGroup helped instructors effectively overview, narrow down, and track nuances throughout students' behaviors.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676347
The increasing proliferation of AI and GenAI requires new interfaces tailored to how their specific affordances and human requirements meet. As GenAI is capable of taking over tasks from users on an unprecedented scale, designing the experience of agency -- if and how users experience control over the process and responsibility over the outcome -- is crucial. As an initial step towards design guidelines for shaping agency, we present a study that explores how features of AI-generated images influence users' experience of agency. We use two measures; temporal binding to implicitly estimate pre-reflective agency and magnitude estimation to assess user judgments of agency. We observe that abstract images lead to more temporal binding than images with semantic meaning. In contrast, the closer an image aligns with what a user might expect, the higher the agency judgment. When comparing the experiment results with objective metrics of image differences, we find that temporal binding results correlate with semantic differences, while agency judgments are better explained by local differences between images. This work contributes towards a future where agency is considered an important design dimension for GenAI interfaces.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676335
We introduce FathomGPT, an open source system for the interactive investigation of ocean science data via a natural language interface. FathomGPT was developed in close collaboration with marine scientists to enable researchers and ocean enthusiasts to explore and analyze the FathomNet image database. FathomGPT provides a custom information retrieval pipeline that leverages OpenAI’s large language models to enable: the creation of complex queries to retrieve images, taxonomic information, and scientific measurements; mapping common names and morphological features to scientific names; generating interactive charts on demand; and searching by image or specified patterns within an image. In designing FathomGPT, particular emphasis was placed on enhancing the user's experience by facilitating free-form exploration and optimizing response times. We present an architectural overview and implementation details of FathomGPT, along with a series of ablation studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach to name resolution, fine tuning, and prompt modification. Additionally, we present usage scenarios of interactive data exploration sessions and document feedback from ocean scientists and machine learning experts.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676462
Immersive authoring provides an intuitive medium for users to create 3D scenes via direct manipulation in Virtual Reality (VR). Recent advances in generative AI have enabled the automatic creation of realistic 3D layouts. However, it is unclear how capabilities of generative AI can be used in immersive authoring to support fluid interactions, user agency, and creativity. We introduce VRCopilot, a mixed-initiative system that integrates pre-trained generative AI models into immersive authoring to facilitate human-AI co-creation in VR. VRCopilot presents multimodal interactions to support rapid prototyping and iterations with AI, and intermediate representations such as wireframes to augment user controllability over the created content. Through a series of user studies, we evaluated the potential and challenges in manual, scaffolded, and automatic creation in immersive authoring. We found that scaffolded creation using wireframes enhanced the user agency compared to automatic creation. We also found that manual creation via multimodal specification offers the highest sense of creativity and agency.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676451